Post navigation

The Forest

From IMDB:
A woman goes into Japan’s Suicide Forest to find her twin sister, and confronts supernatural terror.

Review:

I was looking forward to this but as it often happens with Horror, The Forest‘s plot did not grasp me.

The concept of a place drawing on your fears and sadness to make you turn against yourself is interesting but the way it was executed was less than impressive.

The photography in the movie is breathtaking. The forest during the day, the light, the sounds, everything was mesmerizing and for that alone it was worth watching. But, I don’t know, I guess once you’ve seen enough horror movies you’ve seen them all and you need a cool plot to get you going. At least that’s how it was for me.

In this case, I did not even get why the main character’s sister would go off the trail in the middle of a school trip where she is the teacher or even why the trail is magically safe when the rest of the forest is haunted.

The call that made Sara go there was beyond silly. A teacher goes off the trail and is immediately assumed to go on her way to commit suicide because that’s what people do there? Really? No one even searches for her? Her sister has to get on a plane from the other side of the world and do it for them?

I also never got closure regarding Aiden’s character. What was up with that guy? He kept saying he didn’t know Jess but he had her picture on his phone and he did not deny it. He didn’t deny any of Sara’s accusations, just looked at her menacingly. Even when he was dying I was never sure if he was the real deal, having lied to Sara so many times. I mean… An Australian reporter living in Japan without the slightest hint of an Aussie accent? Meh.

As far as horror movies go, it was ok. Just the Japanese touch makes everything scarier. I had just expected more. I wanted to feel terrified and I never quite got there, not even close. All I kept thinking was what the heck do these people eat? They don’t look hungry, dehydrated or that much tired, just scared. The ending was fairly expected and abrupt. My feeling was basically… What, that’s it?

I am quite aware I am just too picky so I still recommend it, especially that you watch it at night.
I would appreciate it if you’d drop a comment if you have watched this movie or plan to!